If they say: “you must suffer both torture and burning” —
I shall joyously sing on the stake that will finish my life —
Obedient.
If I had to abandon my singing forever,
I would silently offer my tongue and my hands to the knife —
Obedient.
If they said: “you will never again be together” —
I would strengthen my love and would know how to master my fate —
Obedient.
If they forced me to suffer the torments of final betrayal,
My voyage was long—I would readily enter the strait —
Obedient.
But if they forbid us our love — on that day
I shall not believe in the ban, and will not obey.
Если мне скажут: «Ты должен идти на мученье», —
С радостным пеньем взойду на последний костер, —
Послушный.
Если б пришлось навсегда отказаться от пенья,
Молча под нож свой язык я и руки б простер, —
Послушный.
Если б сказали: «Лишен ты навеки свиданья»,
Вынес бы эту разлуку, любовь укрепив, —
Послушный.
Если б мне дали последней измены страданья,
Принял бы в плаваньи долгом и этот пролив,
Послушный.
Если ж любви между нами поставят запрет,
Я не поверю запрету и вымолвлю: «нет».
«That same youth, and these same holes, / And the same nights at the fire... / Sister of your own guitar / Is my divine, holy lyre. To circle souls just like a snowstorm — / One is the gift that us befalls. / Into my sleeping crib is lowered / This title: Stealer of souls! Breaking t...»
«I wrote on paled leaves of the fan / And on the board of slate / And on the river and sea sand, / On glass with a ring and on ice with skates — And on the trunks, a hundred winters old, / And in the end — that everyone would know / That you are loved! Loved! Loved! Loved! — / I s...»
«I desire no love and no honor: / They intoxicate — no falling away! / I don't even desire an apple / Tempting — from hawker's tray.. Something drags behind me like chain, / Soon the thunder will sound in the sky... How I desire — / Oh how I desire — / Very quietly simply to di»
«Others — with eyes or with face full of light, / And I converse with wind in the night. / Not with that Italian / Zephyr oh-so-young — / Russian, blow-through, / A good one, a wide one! Others with all flesh are lost in the flesh, / From dried out lips swallow the breath... / And ...»